Prof. Mark Tunick Prof. Dan White

Students will form 4-5 groups (depending on class size). Each group will select a topic that raises an ethical issue: the topic must be approved by both of the instructors. Some suggestions are given below but you are not confined to these. Groups will formulate a plan for researching their problem area, with the help of the instructors, and divide up the work equitably. The report must be based on not merely library research (consulting news, court cases, articles, etc.) and application of course readings, but also on interviews or other fieldwork. You should go out into the community, perhaps to learn about the ethical views people have. The project will culminate in a group presentation during one of the last 4 class meetings. Each member should play a significant role in the group presentation. The group will turn in a collective report of approximately 4 pages (1000 words) that concisely provides a background of the problem, a discussion of their process of information gathering, the results, and a conclusion. Each group will also prepare a one page outline or powerpoint that they will present to the class. The date of your group's presentation will be determined by lot unless groups can mutually agree on which group presents on which date. The grade will be based on the group presentation and report. In most cases, all members of a group will receive the same grade for the project; however, if it becomes apparent that a member of a group failed to do their fair share, that member's grade may be reduced. To help assess this, each student will hand in a brief statement detailing their particular contribution to the group.

Animal Rights and the Ethical Treatment of Animals:  Based on consideration of ethical perspectives from Singer, Cohen, McGinn, Nussbaum, Pollan, or others of your choosing, consider 1) the ethical status of non-human animals; 2) the way in which this status may be established in light of the history of ethical theory studied this term; 3) the way in which the status should inform the treatment of animals in a specific case where the ethical treatment of animals is at issue, e.g., the food industry, biomedical research, artificial habitats (zoos), wildlife management (conservation of animals in the wild, hunting & fishing, etc.), or the care of indigent pets (policies of the Humane Society and ASPCA). You might want to interview a biomedical researcher at Scripps, for instance, to discuss the ethical treatment of animals in her/his research, then question a member of Friends not Food (the student organization dedicated to animal rights who last year protested against the use of animals for research purposes). You should establish a clear set of ethical perspectives on the ethical status and commensurate treatment of animals, then apply those perspectives in detail to your case study. Different members of your group might want to take opposing stances on the use of animals in research, e.g., presenting both the ethical foundations and consequent guidelines for action regarding the case. Your goal should be to inform a specific problem in ethics with theoretical perspectives and practical advice.

Ethics and media: Someone takes a photo of two people holding hands in public and posts it online (it turns out they are each married to another person); a TV news crew accompanies police and videotapes a man being arrested outside a bar (it turns out that police arrested the wrong person); Readers Digest publishes an article about hijackings in which they include the name of someone who hijacked a truck 11 years earlier, had served his time, and is now fully rehabilitated and living a virtuous life (the man's daughter and friends hadn't known about this and now scorn and abandon him). Reality TV shows like "Bait-Car" show film footage of people stealing a car (which was left unlocked with keys in the ignition); Fox Sportsnetwork broadcasts a Florida Marlin's game and shows a close-up of an overweight man in the stands eating a salad, with the announcers commenting, with a laugh, "That's not gonna be enough for that guy." You might take some examples of media publication of 'private facts' and discuss on what basis we determine if the media acts ethically. You might address how media ethics is affected by the possibility that people are no longer expecting privacy as they become accustomed to sharing information on facebook or youtube or exposing every detail of their lives on reality TV. How do we weigh the competing values of privacy on the one hand, and the public's legitimate interest in information (or entertainment) on the other? Your goal should be to inform a specific problem in ethics with theoretical perspectives and practical advice.

Plagiarism and Honor codes: How prevalent is cheating in universities and how have colleges responded? Are honor codes effective? What alternatives are there? What counts as plagiarism: having a classmate correct a draft? What if the assignment is in Spanish and you ask a native speaker to correct your grammar? What if a student turns in the same paper in two different courses without getting the instructor's prior approval? What are the authoritative sources for discerning what counts as plagiarism? What are some of the ambiguous cases and how should they be resolved? What are existing penalties for plagiarism and cheating and what should they be? Can a college expel students only for academic dishonesty, or can they require students to be ethical outside of the classroom? You might research various honor codes, as well as conduct interviews of those who serve on honor code boards. Your goal should be to inform a specific problem in ethics with theoretical perspectives and practical advice.

The fairness of our criminal justice system: It is often claimed that the criminal justice system does not treat all people equally: that those who can afford top-flight lawyers and investigative teams are more likely to go free than are those who cannot; that minorities, or those who don't speak English or are not part of the mainstream culture are at a distinct disadvantage when charged with a crime and facing punishment. A group may decide to participate in an ongoing study of the arraignment process in Florida's misdemeanor courts by observing arraignments at the West Palm Beach county courthouse and collecting information concerning the fairness of the process. How much time does each judge spend with each defendant? Does it vary depending on whether a person has an attorney present? Speaks English? Does it vary depending on the defendant's race or gender? This project would involve several days of observations by each group member and require students to submit data about their observations in an online survey instrument.

updated 1/5/10